Philip Dunne: I am grateful to the Minister for that optimistic response. The Royal Shrewsbury hospital supplies tremendous service to Welsh patients, especially those from mid-Wales. But why do Welsh patients have to wait 29 per cent. longer than English patients for routine elective operations and 39 per cent. longer for a first out-patient appointment?

Robert Key: In discussing with the First Minister his proposals for climate change legislation, will the Secretary of State ensure that the First Minister is fully aware of the controversial cross-border issues that will arise over proposals for the Severn barrage? Will the Secretary of State and the First Minister ensure that before they proceed they visit the barrage de la Rance at St. Malo, where they will see how over 40 years, and to generate only 3 per cent. of the electricity of Brittany, the environment has been devastated and biodiversity has been sterilised? The impact of the barrage on that part of France has been devastatingly bad and there will be great opposition to the Severn barrage on those grounds alone.

Peter Hain: That is not my understanding, but obviously if the hon. Gentleman wants to put evidence before me I shall be happy to look at it. As I understand it, the evidence shows that the Rance river, which is the only equivalent project that I know about, has seen an increase in biodiversity. Given the support for the proposal in the south-west, from Bristol down to Taunton, including the regional development agency and local authorities, I think the Severn barrage could be of enormous benefit environmentally and in every other way.

Peter Hain: This is from a Welsh Conservative party that did extremely badly at the 3 May elections and that has consistently lost ground in Wales over the past 20 years because of its anti-Welsh policies and the way in which unemployment went up and bankruptcies and public spending cuts increased in Wales under the Tories. All that would lie in Wales' future if Tory Ministers took power away from a Welsh Assembly Labour Government. Tory Ministers back in power and in charge of Wales is not something that the people of Wales want.

Tony Blair: First, let me make one thing clear to the right hon. Gentleman—more than 100,000 people will benefit from the scheme. There used to be absolutely nothing for those people. Secondly, let me point out to him that the reason why we have not gone beyond 80 per cent. is that it is wrong to promise that we can go further than that unless we can say how it will be paid for. We simply cannot, on the basis of the Treasury loan scheme or the idea of unclaimed assets, make future spending commitments outside of the £8 billion. That is not sensible and it is not responsible. As for suggesting that we are not helping people, it is true that more than 1,000 people have already been helped, but in the years to come there will be tens of thousands more.

Tony Blair: Because I have enormous respect for my hon. Friend and because this may be the last time that he asks me a question at Prime Minister's questions, I do not want to disagree with him—but if I were pushed to, I might. It is important—and this has been made clear—that on matters such as expenses, MPs continue to be very open. There is a consensus on that. A huge amount of scrutiny is given by the House about Members of Parliament and I do not think we should apologise for what we do in the House.

Mark Lancaster: Does the Prime Minister agree that if communities like Milton Keynes are to be truly sustainable, final decisions on their expansion should be made by democratically elected local authorities, not by unelected, unaccountable quangos?

Paul Rowen: Can the Prime Minister tell the House what the evidence is for his assertion that closing or downgrading accident and emergency departments like Rochdale's saves lives?

Tony Blair: As I said to the hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster) earlier, the green belt is being protected—we now have far more development on brownfield sites—and that is absolutely right, but we need to build more homes. If the Conservative party says that, in general, we need to give help to first time buyers and those who need to get into the housing market, and help to ensure that we have proper housing, it cannot then, in particular, oppose every housing development in different parts of the country. That simply shows me that the Conservative party, in that area of policy as in many others, has still not worked it out.

Andrew Miller: Two days ago, General Motors brought its most advanced hydrogen-powered car in the Palace of Westminster for colleagues to see. Over the past few months, the Government have done a tremendous amount of work, led by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, to ensure that General Motors succeeds in delivering investment into Ellesmere Port. Can we have an assurance that the Government will continue that work to help promote those new modern technologies? Does the Prime Minister agree that there is no incompatibility between the development of vehicle building and climate change issues when it is delivered by those sorts of hydrogen technologies?

Stephen O'Brien: I beg to move,
	That this House acknowledges the aims of the NHS National Programme for Information Technology (IT) and supports them in principle, recognising the potential benefits IT can bring to patients and NHS staff if implemented correctly; deplores the hasty conception of the National Programme under the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the failure to consult adequately with service users; regrets the parallel failure by the Department of Health to implement successfully the Medical Training Application process; expresses concern about the impact of the Care Records Service on patient confidentiality; notes in particular the concerns of the Committee of Public Accounts, in the context of its criticisms of the Government's mismanagement of IT projects at large about the cost, delays in the Care Records System, the lack of a firm timetable for delivery, the struggles faced by suppliers to the programme, and the lack of engagement with frontline NHS professionals; regrets the opportunity cost to patient care and the disillusionment caused by the Programme amongst NHS staff; seeks assurances on the supply chain, particularly regarding iSOFT and an explanation for the delays in Choose and Book; and therefore calls for a full and independent review of the NHS IT programme.
	I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
	Let me be clear from the outset: Conservative Members believe in ensuring that all patients in our NHS will get better care in future, from the expertise, dedication and wonderful work of NHS doctors, nurses, therapists and, yes, NHS managers, by harnessing information technology to improve the processes for patients' treatments and their clinical outcomes. So, yes, we endorse the aims of the NHS national programme for IT, known as NPFIT and succeeded by Connecting for Health, which we support in principle, but—it is a big "but"—the reason for the debate, in Opposition time and in the absence of the Government bringing such an important and costly programme for debate on the Floor of the House, is to highlight, sadly, the woeful shortcomings of the way in which the Government have first designed and then sort to implement this vital programme.
	The fact that the shortcomings were identified and predicted by us and many others over the past five years puts the onus on the Government not only to account for their delays, design U-turns and serial incompetence, but to accept that it is the official Opposition who now offer a constructive way forward in the interests of NHS patients—a constructive approach that is consistent with all that my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) so expertly epitomises at all times in wanting to make our NHS better for all.
	Members should not expect a speech from me focusing on which ministerial heads should roll. Nor should those so disillusioned by the Government's amateurish cackhandedness in implementing their own policy through this IT programme that they would stop it in its tracks expect me to call for even an audit. That would imply, as audits do, that we want to look back at something that has stopped—finished. We do not. Rather, it is because we believe in the positive potential benefits of IT in the NHS, implemented correctly, for the good of patients and the morale and professionalism of all staff, that we now call for a full and independent zero-based review. We want to see a contrast with the Government's performance to date: we want to see the programme put right, because that is the right thing to do.
	The review—and this is the difference between a review and an audit—can and must be carried out while work on the programme is in progress, to prevent even more lost time and, potentially, lost lives. If the Government do not agree to a full and independent review today as a result of our call, we will, as a matter of urgency, set one up ourselves.
	Why is the need for a review so urgent? Not because this is some remote, geeky, abstract topic, with IT experts arguing about the best platforms, protocols and data-sharing mechanisms and employing all the gobbledegook jargon that passes for language in the ethereal IT world, but because the Department of Health itself claims that the care records service—only one part of the programme—will prevent "thousands of unnecessary deaths". As the programme is already at least two years late, by the Government's own admission the consequences of its incompetent implementation must be those very thousands of unnecessary deaths. That is the real cost of the delays, the incompetence and the lost opportunity—let alone the estimated financial opportunity cost of £1.4 billion of taxpayers' money. According to the National Audit Office, that was the cost last year, and it is rising.

Andrew Miller: I thank the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, for allowing me to intervene. Given that he does not want the system to be scrapped—and given that there are now 19,778 instances of IT deployment, the 250 millionth picture archiving and communication system record is now in existence, and the 22 millionth prescription since the last Conservative-initiated debate has been issued—the number has risen from 237 million to nearly 250 million—he must recognise that real progress is being made. Is not the motion merely a diversion? Is this not just political opportunism on the hon. Gentleman's part?

Stephen O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making sure that the House is aware of those incidents, which caused concern, most importantly, for the patients themselves at the time. There is a lack of accountability and the lack of an explanation of why those incidents took place.
	It is important to ensure that there is no misunderstanding among various Labour Members. To be constructive and to move forward, we must understand how we came to be here. Therefore, let us briefly track back. In 1998 the Government published their own information for health strategy. February 2002 saw the Prime Minister hold
	"a seminar in information technology",
	another great headline-grabbing initiative, but how many clinicians were present at the meeting? Perhaps we shall soon learn, as the outgoing Prime Minister rushes his memoirs to the printers, but do not hold your breath, Mr Speaker.
	April 2002 brought the Wanless report, which recommended that IT funding should be doubled and ring-fenced. By June, the national programme for IT was launched by Ministers with the title "Delivering 21st century IT support for the NHS". The published version of that omitted both the high-risk scoring and the costs estimate included in the draft—then £5 billion, a figure brilliantly unearthed by my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), whose forensic and relentless work in that area has been, and remains, parliamentary scrutiny of the highest order. I pay tribute to him. Can the Minister tell us why that £5 billion cost estimate was left out of the document? I look forward to the answer.
	In December 2005, the problems really began.

Stephen O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. It has often been confirmed by our local expert, the surgeon commander on my right, my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), that that system was working perfectly satisfactorily and did not need to be hugely improved under the current system. However, there are still other systems that must be brought up to standard.
	One of the major concerns with the NHS IT programme, and one which an independent review must address, is the seeming lack of an evidence base for it. In a recent  British Medical Journal article on the subject, one trust director was quoted as saying
	"One of the things they haven't done very well is to clarify some of the benefits...I haven't seen a good list of benefits".
	Cost-benefit analysis is basic to any capital project, let alone one of this scale, costing billions, and especially when it is taxpayers' money. The paucity of the evidence base testifies to the hurried planning and procurement of the programmes. With at least £12.4 billion of taxpayers' money being committed, some cost-benefit analysis should have been done, and a robust business case established.
	The growing cost of the programme has been the inevitable and wholly avoidable consequence. The programme was launched with the putative cost, as we know, of £5 billion, which was excised from the document. Once the contracts were signed, the ministerial line was that it would cost £6.2 billion over 10 years, although Lord Warner admitted on "Newsnight" that
	"the full cost of the programme was likely to be nearer £20 billion".
	The NAO put the figure of £12.4 billion on the programme, and the PAC has suggested that even that massive sum may be surpassed. To October 2006, only £918.2 million-worth of that sum had been delivered.
	Despite the highest paid civil servant being in charge of Connecting for Health, the programme has suffered from a lack of leadership. In two years, there were no fewer than six "senior responsible owners" of the NHS IT programme at Richmond house. Lack of leadership was one of the key themes of this week's PAC report into Government IT. It highlighted the failure of Ministers across Government to meet the senior responsible owners of mission-critical and high-risk IT programmes, or to take a grip by meeting them sufficiently regularly. It also highlighted the low profile and high turnover of chief information officers and the lack of clarity about their roles.
	To all of that we must add that one of the design flaws of the NHS IT programme has been its massive centralisation. The programme structure has, in effect, established several regional monopolies through local service providers. From the original four, there are now three providers serving five regions: the CSC Alliance in the north-west and west midlands, the north-east and the eastern clusters; Fujitsu Alliance in the southern cluster; and the Capital Care Alliance—CCA—in the London cluster. CSC took on two clusters from Accenture when it pulled out of the programme in September 2006.
	Hospitals have been forced to accept the IT imposed on them by those local service providers, or in some cases have had to invest in costly interim solutions due to delays in the programme. A recent BMJ study into the implementation of the programme suggested that the Connecting for Health software is more expensive than software on the open market. One medical director said:
	"A lot of things are being sold to us at a much higher price than we would have been able to get if we'd been in a real market situation, so the total costs to the NHS have been very high indeed".
	Those regional monopolies have caused serious supply-chain concerns. The exit of Accenture—at an estimated loss to it of £250 million—was a big blow to the credibility of the programme. The supplier that has been most in the public eye is iSOFT. Its share price has plummeted twice—that is public information—and on 6 April the shares fell a further 40 per cent. It appears that iSOFT's previous accounting policy, which it has now had to abandon, was based on its receipt of letters of credit, centred around advance payments from NHS Connecting for Health. In evidence to the PAC on 26 June, Richard Granger of Connecting for Health stated that it would make an advance payment only when covered by a letter of credit from a bank. That is nice work if you can get it.  [Interruption.] That completely undermines the Department's claim that suppliers get paid only when they deliver.  [Interruption.] But as the Minister cannot be bothered to listen, she will not understand that.
	iSOFT is now looking for a buyer. Its main customer, CSC or Computer Sciences Corporation, has opposed a bid by an Australian firm.  [Interruption.] The Minister says from a sedentary position that she finds what I am saying boring. The trouble is that she is so bored by IT that she has not bothered to have regular meetings, or to supervise or take a grip of the process. She needs to listen to a proper critique of where the Government are wasting taxpayers' money, and to take control for once of a programme for which the Government are deeply responsible.

Stephen O'Brien: Whether or not things were hidden or inefficient in the private sector, at least scrutiny was exercised by both competition and shareholders. It appears in the public sector that the Government have also been seeking to hide things. Why else have they not had a debate on this subject on the Floor of the House? The Opposition have had to secure this debate. Furthermore, taxpayers' money has been used and the Government have created a series of monopolies for delivery, and they are not exposing that to the true test, which is competition. Competition is one of the best ways of making sure that things are not inefficient and not hidden.
	The two most controversial elements of the programme are the care records service and choose and book. Under the care records service, the patient record was supposed to have been fully rolled out by December 2005. The first pilots went live only in March this year, and we are still awaiting a timetable for full roll-out. Above all, widespread and deep-seated anxiety about patient confidentiality has troubled many as they come to appreciate the Government's design for their private and personal information.
	The Government made a notable U-turn when they decided in December last year to allow individuals to opt out of the summary care record: we welcome that option. However, serious concerns remain. The Government insist on saying that
	"only basic data will be held on the summary care record".
	However, that includes information about prescriptions, from which, as any doctor will confirm, any illness or range of illnesses being treated can be fairly easily extrapolated. Will the Minister remove prescription data from the summary care record, or at least stop using the word "basic", which is deceptive in this context?
	Moreover, when the Government announced the opt-out, they failed to make it clear that it is still not a full opt-out. Patients can opt out of having their medical details uploaded to the spine, but they still cannot opt out of having their demographic information updated, such as name, address, date of birth and NHS number. Will the Secretary of State come to the House to state that that will be made clear in the literature going out to patients at the pilot sites? Furthermore, the Government have not yet come clean on whether they intend to join up their identity cards programme with the NHS IT programme; this debate gives the Minister the opportunity to clear that up, and I hope that she will do so.
	Finally, we have not yet received the assurances we need about the security of the system. The Minister might stand up and rehearse arguments about "legitimate relationships", "role-based access", smart cards and audit trails, but we know that smart cards are shared in hospitals, and an audit trail—if it works—merely tries to shut the door after the horse has bolted.

Stephen O'Brien: I am surprised to discover that the hon. Lady has not been listening, because that is certainly not what I said. Anybody relying on that 98 per cent. figure will discover on examination that even a doctor who has used choose and book once and found it to be totally useless has been included in that figure. The true figure—as shown in a parliamentary answer given by one of the Minister's own colleagues—is about 38 per cent., although it might have gone up by one or two points since that answer was given. So the hon. Lady should rely on facts, rather than on the Whip's handout.
	I turn briefly to electronic prescriptions. In 2004, the Department of Health set an overall aim of "implementing a national service" of e-prescribing
	"by 2005 for 50 per cent. of all transactions, with full implementation by 2007."
	However, just 0.1 per cent. of all prescriptions issued in the NHS in December 2005 were issued by that method. Although the latest available figures show that in the week to 28 May 2007, 5 per cent. of all prescriptions were issued using the electronic prescriptions service—that is a better measure than the one paraded in earlier intervention and in the Government's amendment—figures uncovered by us show that less than 2 per cent. of those prescriptions were downloaded by pharmacists for dispensing. So much for the boast in the Government's amendment! Despite even this very low take-up rate, NHS Connecting for Health still insists that,
	"By 2007, every GP surgery (for use by the GPs, nurses and other prescribers working from the surgery) and community pharmacy and other dispensers will have access to the service."
	We witnessed the sight in Woolwich as recently as 25 May of the incoming Prime Minister saying in his campaign—against nobody—to head the Labour party that
	"we need prescriptions to be translated to people, directly to the chemist, in a way that you don't have to queue up at the doctor's for a repeat prescription".
	However, this is the very Chancellor who presided over a Treasury that explicitly provided the money, which he announced in his Budgets, to be spent to achieve all this by 2005. What monumental incompetence caused him not to know where that money had gone and that it had failed to achieve its stated goal—so much so that he had to announce that goal as the very first of his new ideas? The system was meant to have been in place for more than 18 months now.
	Speaking of monumental incompetence, I shall leave the subject of the parallel scandalous failure of the Department to implement successfully the medical training application scheme for junior doctors to my expert colleague who will wind up for us today—the surgeon commander, my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury.  [Interruption.] Yes, surgeon commander, and to be respected.
	Today we are calling for a full zero-based independent review of the programme. To date, rather chippily, that has been ruled out by Ministers and by the chief executive of the NHS, yet the latter has acknowledged the "clash" between a national programme and the need for it to be delivered locally. He described the programme as
	"too much, on far too big a waterfront",
	and referred to the "bunker mentality" that Connecting for Health has built around it. I cannot argue with his critique of the programme as far as it goes, but when are the Government going to make the necessary U-turn and devolve complete power to local hospitals? One of the original architects, Lord Hunt, who is now back in post, said just last month —[Interruption.] Ministers might like to listen to this. Their own colleague who is now back in post and in charge, said that now is the right time
	"to make the shift towards local ownership".
	That is what we have called for all along—local contracting, with nationally set interoperability standards.

Caroline Flint: Nobody is being disregarded. We recognise that there have been delays because we need to be sure that what we are trying to achieve and the practical implementation of the programme are understood. I make no apology for that. I would rather spend a little time getting it right than do it wrong. There is a difference between constructive engagement and that based on no real evidence but on speculation and misinformation put into the public arena. I will give specific examples on particular groups later.
	The national programme for IT in the NHS has established a number of well respected national clinical leads, and recently appointed a full-time clinical director. It has also established user forums for live systems and continues to improve these systems in line with feedback from users. Perhaps the greatest example of the way in which the national programme for IT does listen to its end-users relates to the picture archiving and communication systems, or PACS. Today in London, every NHS hospital is now equipped with that type of system. That means that patients wait significantly less time for reports and follow-up consultations, that films are no longer lost and that care is delivered more safely and efficiently. Picture archiving was not part of the programme when the contracts were let in 2003. Those systems were added to the contracts in 2004 in direct response to feedback from front-line clinicians and groups representing patients, so the system has been updated and remains as flexible as possible to take account of new IT developments.

Caroline Flint: I agree with my hon. Friend. The review is a red herring and part of the attempt constantly to undermine the good progress that is being made under the national programme. The Conservatives are trying to build in more stalling mechanisms, instead of constructively engaging on delivery.
	When the Department of Health published the principles of the procurement arrangements for the national programme in January 2003, it stated clearly that it intended to transfer financing and completion risk to the supplier community. All suppliers bid voluntarily for the delivery of services to the NHS under those contracts, and in a small number of cases there have been significant supplier failures. While that is unfortunate in itself, it is fortunate that the costs of those failures have not been borne by the taxpayer. Simply pouring further funds into inefficient and often paper-based administrative processes might be what is recommended by the experts advising Conservative Members, but the Labour Government believe that a properly supported and financed national programme for systems in the NHS is absolutely essential to how we deliver health services in the 21st century.
	There is strong evidence pointing to the fact that the chaotic and ad hoc procurement of local systems delivers poorer care as a consequence of tests being unnecessarily repeated, patients' treatments being delayed and appointments having to be rebooked when information is not available. Properly networked systems operating across multiple locations with a high degree of standardisation are the common-sense solution.
	Far from there being a significant opportunity cost to patient care, efficiencies are delivering significantly better patient care as a consequence of the NHS having a universal wide-area network, an online demographic service that is accessible from more than 7,000 locations and used by more than 50,000 front-line staff each day, and a picture archiving system, the deployment of which throughout the whole country is nearing completion. It would be naïve to imagine that the implementation of such long overdue and complex systems would not be without disruption. Many end-users are far from disillusioned; they are delighted to have modern tools available. That is especially the case in community settings, where staff, especially nurses, were frequently dependent on paper and often needed to visit offices to obtain notes and details of further visits.
	The NHS IT programme has already been subjected to a number of reviews, including an 18-month full and independent review by the NAO. I note with some sadness that 23 individuals, some of whom are well respected academics, have called for a review of the programme. As was mentioned earlier, I understand that representatives of the group met David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS. Unfortunately, Professors Ross Anderson and Martyn Thomas were unable to articulate any firm grounds to substantiate an independent review, other than the existence of a large volume of negative media coverage—I have seen it—some of which they generated. Is that really a basis for a review when so many of our patients are already benefiting from a better NHS? We, the Government, think not.
	Thousands of NHS staff and many thousands more patients are already benefiting from the national programme for IT. In the trusts covering the constituency of the hon. Member for Eddisbury, Connecting for Health systems are already used by 645 GPs and 335 pharmacists. To date, more than 20,000 direct bookings have been made through choose and book in his area, which is already benefiting from the picture archiving and communications system. Our ambition is that all NHS staff and the public throughout England will gain from the enormous benefits that the national programme for IT is enabling. With pride and confidence, I commend the Government amendment to the House.

Norman Lamb: I fully accept that that there were many problems, but that is no reason for failing to be concerned about the situation or failing to acknowledge the concerns of people working in the system about the problems that are occurring here and now. In April this year, 79 doctors and admin staff in Milton Keynes hospital wrote that the patient administration system was "not fit for purpose". It was reported in May this year that the Royal United hospital in Bath had still not had its Cerner software installed. The system was supposed to go live in November 2005, but the hospital was still waiting in May. In the same month Manchester reported hundreds of inaccurate patient records in the online booking system. The Minister ought to be concerned that those problems are still occurring.
	All those technical problems have led to extra costs and delays. Reference has been made to the fact that many of the costs arising from the problems have been incurred by the private sector—I acknowledge that that has been a feature of the contractual arrangements—but it would be naive to believe that that does not have an impact on the delivery of the system. The private sector appears to be in a mess financially: Accenture is in all sorts of financial difficulty, and it has withdrawn from the system. Those problems have an impact on the delivery of the system, and I am pleased that the Government acknowledge that.
	The plan was hatched in February 2003. Despite Government claims, there was no proper analysis of need or of the purpose of the whole scheme. The original budget was £2.3 billion, but it was adjusted to £6 billion, and the National Audit Office referred to £12.4 billion. We have heard estimates from insiders of a total budget of £20 billion to £40 billion—the figure keeps going up. Targets have been missed. The Minister referred to all the targets that had been hit, but what about the fact that 155 of the 176 acute trusts, according to Connecting for Health, should have been operating systems by the end of 2006-07? Only 16 of the 155 got there. We heard about the problems with iSOFT and the fact that it is under investigation by the Financial Services Authority. That is fine—we can say that it is iSOFT's problem, but iSOFT was a key player in this whole thing, and it has an impact on the delivery of systems, so we ought to be concerned.
	The Foundation for Information Policy Research says that the reason for the delay in the care records service is that it is the wrong system to build in the first place. It says that it is not how the rest of the world works. It says:
	"Connecting for health is watched with appalled fascination by colleagues overseas".
	Finally, may I deal with civil liberties and privacy issues?

Norman Lamb: I am sure that the 23 IT academics could come up with some names to carry out the review. To suggest that it may be difficult to find appropriate people to conduct such a review is no argument at all against the need for proper analysis of where the system is and where we should go from here.
	May I deal with civil liberties issues, starting with the opt-out point? The plan is that individuals receive a letter from their local PCT telling them that they have a period of time in which to opt out. If they do not do so within that time their consent is implied. I am seriously concerned about that—I do not know whether other hon. Members share my concern—because we are dealing with elderly and vulnerable people, as well as people with learning difficulties. Should we assume their consent, as sensitive information could be shared on a national basis? The more widely such information is such shared, the greater the risks involved. The House may be interested to know that, this week,  Pulse reported that in Bolton, which is the site of the trial, GPs are falling out over the project. A group of GPs has sent a letter expressing concern, particularly about the issue of implied consent. They say:
	"Much can be gleaned from knowing what drugs a patient is taking, so why does the first stage not require 'explicit' consent? Nationally 67 per cent. of GPs oppose implied consent."
	The Minister's notion that a tiny number of people have objected is no reason to be complacent or to believe that there are not legitimate concerns about the confidentiality of patient information.

Norman Lamb: The answer to that is that I have strong objections to the national spine. I do not object to local sharing of information, provided that the principles are in place to ensure security of information.
	A doctor told me this week that doctors have no advice on the storing of PINs. No advice has been received from the Department of Health about how to store PINs. The doctor told me that the PCT has a store of all the PINs. No guidance has been issued about the security of those. No principles have been issued about the care of smart cards. There are concerns about viewing online and the potential for exploitation of vulnerable elderly people by relatives who might want sensitive information about their health. In her speech the Minister acknowledged that she was considering the penalties that would apply. I am pleased to hear that, but it is rather late in the day. The principles should have been in place much earlier.

Norman Lamb: No. I shall make progress.
	Labour Members dismiss concerns about patient confidentiality, but have they read the Information Commissioner's written evidence to the Health Committee? He writes that he is
	"conscious that these plans inevitably pose significant data protection risks",
	including confidentiality and accuracy. He refers to challenges posed by policing, consistency and security of access. He is concerned about potential abuses. In a letter to me referring to MTAS the Information Commissioner writes:
	"I have no doubt that the experience serves as a stark illustration"—
	the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West will sympathise with this—
	"of the issues which arise where security of sensitive data is not treated with the utmost seriousness".
	That is why the Government should take greater note of the concerns expressed in the House and outside.
	The Information Commissioner reserves judgment on whether controls over access will work. He says that it is too early to tell. He has listened to the assurances, but that is not to say that they will work. He refers to a particular case where smart cards had been shared among a group of consultants in accident and emergency. He says that that increased the risk of breaches of security and confidentiality. He also expresses concern about the potential for enforced access to HealthSpace, potentially as a condition for securing employment. These issues have not yet been dealt with.
	It is remarkable that we have a system that poses such potential risks to individual confidentiality without these matters having been properly resolved. The Information Commissioner speaks of the whole system being vulnerable to the unlawful obtaining, procurement and disclosure of personal data—blagging, as I am told it is called. He raises a host of concerns. The Minister should be taking the concerns of the Information Commissioner, if not of the Opposition parties, extremely seriously.
	The written evidence to the Select Committee makes fascinating reading. The NHS Confederation has a number of serious reservations, as do Patient Concern, the Renal Association, and Londonwide LMCs representing 5,000 GPs in London. Many individuals who made submissions to the Health Committee raise serious concerns about the way in which the project is developing.
	My message to the Government is that they should learn the lesson from MTAS. They should learn what happened when they did not listen to all the concerns that were being expressed, and stop digging when they know they are already in a hole. They should acknowledge the problems and agree to an independent review.

Kevin Barron: I apologise for my late arrival for the debate. With other members of the Health Committee, I have been to see the IT system at Homerton hospital in Hackney this morning, as part of our evidence gathering for our inquiry into electronic patient records. I apologise for being late and missing some of the speech of the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien).
	The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) read out a litany of concerns. I wonder how many of the doctors whom he quoted are involved in the national programme.

Richard Bacon: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I have followed the national programme for IT in the health service for several years, principally because of my membership of the Public Accounts Committee and that Committee's interest in value for money, delivery, effectiveness, efficiency and economy. Of course, IT projects are notorious, across Governments of different political persuasions, for failure to deliver. The national programme for IT in the health service is the largest civilian IT project in the world. For that reason alone, I have been following its progress with great interest.
	I am not a specialist in health matters or in IT, but I am greatly interested in value for money. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), who is a former member of the PAC, will confirm that serving on that Committee makes one put on spectacles that are primarily non-party-political, because one is considering value for money. That is what we do. I say in parenthesis that I agreed with the hon. Gentleman's point about private sector IT contractors. Of course, things go wrong with such contractors and they are better at hiding it. I hold no brief for any national or local IT contractors or any specific supplier.
	It is extraordinary and regrettable that the important national programme for IT has become party political. I can think of nothing less party political than a computer system. There are legitimate matters for political debate—perhaps fewer than existed 30 years ago, but many remain, including housing and—dare I mention it?—schooling. However, computer systems are not among them. There are computer systems that work and computer systems that do not work. We should all want the former—and that should be it.
	Serious technical problems remain with the system, which needs to be put back on track. However, the Department of Health's current proposal for the local ownership programme is not the right way to do it. The right answer involves more choice for trusts and more competition between suppliers to get the confidence and business of the trusts. One gets ownership through choice and successful delivery through ownership.
	Where needed, the Government should review the operational performance of the local service providers against their original contractual obligations and examine how they have accounted financially for their actions. I believe that forensic accountants would reveal some interesting facts about millions of pounds of losses being hidden. I also want to comment briefly on the Computer Sciences Corporation and iSOFT; we learned this morning that CSC is considering a bid for iSOFT.
	It is indisputable that the programme is not working properly technically. I was surprised to note in the presentation made to the Prime Minister on 19 February the sentence:
	"The key challenges and risks to delivery are now not about technology to support the NPfIT but about attitudes and behaviours which need to be the focus of senior management and ministerial attention as we move forward".
	Of course, getting the right attitudes and behaviours to support the programme—and, indeed, any IT programme—are central. That is why experts say that many problems are not about IT but getting human beings, especially well-paid, intelligent and independent-minded human beings, to operate in the right way. Of course, change management must happen, but the idea that no serious technical problem remains is nonsense. The fact that the Prime Minister is being told that there is no serious technical problem is worrying, because it suggests that Ministers have not always been told all the facts that they need to know.
	One need look no further than the visit that took place on 14 May by David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS, and Richard Granger, director general of IT, to Milton Keynes to examine the problems there. One IT contact of mine charitably described the visit as a catastrophe. It followed a letter, to which the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) referred, from 79 doctors, nurses and secretaries at Milton Keynes general hospital, which said:
	"We are doctors, nurses and secretaries at Milton Keynes General Hospital. From our early experience of the new Care Records Service computer system it is not fit for purpose.
	In spite of heroic efforts from our IT staff and from the installing company, start-up glitches have been unacceptable and particularly bad in outpatient clinics. More seriously the software is so clunky, awkward and unaccommodating that we cannot foresee the system working adequately in a clinical context.
	In our opinion it should not be installed in any further hospitals.
	If it is not already too late there is a strong argument for withdrawing the Care Records Service system from this hospital."
	Milton Keynes is in the southern cluster, where Fujitsu is installing the product from Cerner Millennium. The staff say that it does not work, is not fit for purpose and should be withdrawn.
	Let us consider the position of the other clusters—the north-east, eastern, north-west and west midlands—where CSC, following of the withdrawal of Accenture, has control of three clusters and is installing iSOFT Lorenzo. The only problem is that iSOFT's Lorenzo product has not yet been written. It is therefore nonsensical to claim that there are no technical problems. It is worrying that the Prime Minister has been told otherwise.
	When David Nicholson and Richard Granger visited Milton Keynes, they acknowledged the scale of the problems. Yesterday they were cited in  E-Health Insider, which stated that a spokesman had said:
	"Mr. Granger and Mr. Nicholson gave the Trust their full support resolving issues related to CRS. The Trust is committed to working with CfH to improve CRS".
	However, big problems remain.
	I now turn to iSOFT—and I note that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who has done much work in this area, is now in his place. The funny thing is that page 6 of the iSOFT Group plc's 2005 annual report and accounts says:
	"Available from early 2004 LORENZO was the first solution on the market targeted to meet the demanding requirements of healthcare providers around the world."
	I stress, "available from early 2004". Yet when CSC and Accenture, which was still involved at that point, wrote a review of Lorenzo in February 2006—some considerable time after the statement about its availability—they concluded:
	"There is no mapping of features to release, nor detailed plans. In other words, there is no well-defined scope and therefore no believable plan for releases beyond Lorenzo GP."
	Lorenzo GP is a basic version for GPs. The review continues:
	"There is a significant risk that an evaluation of the 'gap' between the needs of CfH and the capability of the generic solution will require significant re-work of product and platform layers. This will likely lead to schedule slippage. Additionally, there is a risk that the generic solution will contain features that are not required by CfH, lengthening the time taken to deliver the CfH solution."
	When iSOFT's financial results were published—rather late—it said:
	"We intend to begin delivering LORENZO functionality to users within the NPfIT before the end of 2007, and for individual solution modules to become available on a phased basis through 2008."
	How can a firm begin to deliver functionality to users in the NPfIT before the end of 2007, and individual solution modules on a phased basis through 2008, for something that its 2005 annual report claimed was already available in 2004? Perhaps that is why it has been under investigation by the Financial Services Authority. It appears that in the past it has been making statements to the stock market that are not justified by the facts. Those statements probably caused the share price to be higher than it otherwise would have been. Many directors subsequently sold their shares. However, that is a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry, and probably outside the scope of the debate.

Richard Bacon: I very much agree with that, as these investigations take far too long. The hon. Gentleman referred to his previous role as an investigative journalist, and I commend him for the work that he has done. I also commend the excellent work of Simon Bowers on the financial pages of  The Guardian. Yes, the DTI should get involved and the current investigation by the Financial Services Authority should be speeded up. No, it is not the Government's fault if iSOFT is a dodgy company, but it may be their fault if, not having exercised sufficient and due diligence, they continue to make advance payments through the local service provider and in effect prop up a dodgy company that has failed to deliver, has made false statements about the availability of its products to the stock market, and has misled investors, the public and the NHS.
	The way forward—clearly, there must be one—proposed by David Nicholson, the chief executive, is to put greater emphasis on the local side through the local ownership programme. It sounds good in theory, but I fear that what it means is something different. I quote a piece from  E-Health Insider of 25 May, which pointed out that the chief executive said that the aim of the local ownership programme was
	"'to reinvigorate the programme.' This includes 'giving the SHAs, with their trusts and PCTs, greater participation in the choice of NPfIT products and in the planning and timing of deployments.'"
	That sounds fine, but does it mean that if people do not want to, they will not have to install Cerner Millennium? No. Does it mean that if they do not want to, they will not have to install iSOFT's Lorenzo—apart from the fact that it has not been written yet? No, it does not, so they do not really have choice. What I fear this is all about is not real localisation, but the decentralisation of blame. It is about handing over to others the responsibility for implementing the unimplementable, and then being in a position later to blame them when they cannot do it. I thus have my doubts about the national local ownership programme.

Richard Bacon: It probably will, which is one of the reasons why I suspect that CSC has been sniffing around with iSOFT's banks. By the way, iSOFT was not aware of this until after it had happened, but CSC—the local service provider for three fifths of the programme—has been talking to its main software subcontractor's banks about buying iSOFT's debt, presumably because that would put it in pole position for a bid, should it wish to make one. I believe that it is incumbent on the Government to state their view of local service providers owning a main software subcontractor and the potential impact on competition and choice, which are essential if we are to get out of this mess. Greater choice, I believe, is essential.
	If the notes to the Prime Minister may not have been completely accurate in saying that technology was not a problem, it remains true—as I mentioned earlier, and I saw the hon. Member for South Derbyshire nodding in agreement—that a lot of the problem is about human behaviour, changing attitudes and so forth. In order to do that, we have to have ownership. The question is how we get ownership, and the answer is through choice, and by making local trusts accountable for choosing what they want, and then accountable for delivering it. That, rather than having systems foisted on them that they do not want and will not use, is what is needed. We must have more choice.
	Some hon. Members have referred to the Public Accounts Committee report, which I had some hand in. I want to draw the Minister's attention to two particular paragraphs: one a recommendation, the other a rather worrying conclusion, which the Government should reflect on far more than they have so far. The first is recommendation 4 on page 5 of the report, which says:
	"In view of the slippage in the deployment of local systems, the Department should also commission an urgent independent review of the performance of Local Service Providers against their contractual obligations."
	My belief is that such a review of the performance of LSPs against their contractual obligations would strengthen the Government's arm in the negotiations that would be necessary if the value of the contracts were reduced. Look at what has been going on with British Telecom in London, for example. BT employed the software firm IDX for a considerable period, and my best estimate is that about £200 million was spent before it sacked the firm and moved over to the Cerner product. The effect is akin to owning a Ford transit van, getting rid of it, then buying a Mercedes van, but still trying to do the maintenance with the old Ford transit manual; it does not work.
	The money is completely wasted, yet neither BT in London nor CSC in its areas—not to mention Fujitsu in the south—has done anything to try to account for the losses that must have been made. At least Accenture had the honesty to come up front and say that it was making provision for $450 million. I am certain that the other local service providers are hiding millions of pounds—probably hundreds of millions—of losses. The Government ought to be aware of that now, because it has consequences for the behaviour of the LSPs in trying to claw back money because they did not make any on the contracts.
	Finally, I want to say a quick word about CSC and iSOFT. I have already mentioned them in passing and in response to interventions. We cannot overstate the importance of the fact that three fifths of the national programme for IT in the health service depends on this relationship between CSC and iSOFT, so it is of considerable interest that the president of European business development, the president of the northern region of the UK and the Netherlands, the senior vice-president of global infrastructure services for Europe, the middle east and Africa, the vice-president of service delivery for Europe, the middle east and Africa, the service delivery director of the NHS for the original contract in the north-west region, the vice-president for new NHS accounts, the chief operating officer for Europe, the middle east and Africa, the vice-president for service delivery to BAE Systems, the president for CSC southern region, and the director of services for global accounts have all resigned quite recently. I therefore wonder in what fit state this company is, in terms of its senior management, to continue to be a local service provider, let alone to bid for one of the main software subcontractors.
	It is interesting to note that CSC in Europe, the middle east and Africa has recently announced a continuation of the two-year freeze on all training. What does that mean for the NHS? Contrary to what the Minister said earlier, I do not think that Opposition Members have any interest in protecting local service providers or IT suppliers. We want to see competition and choice and we want to things working. It is not obvious to me from the available evidence that CSC is in a particularly healthy position.

John Pugh: Might it not be the case that the company will become heavily dependent on the expertise provided by local hospitals rather than use its own—with costs to local hospitals?

Richard Bacon: Insofar as I have understood the hon. Gentleman's question—it is important to have expertise locally in hospitals. As the hon. Member for North Norfolk mentioned, one of the great problems has been a whole incubus of a central layer trying to impose what happens locally from a great distance. Plainly, one size does not fit all.
	I shall now conclude, as other Members wish to speak. I hope that the Government will acknowledge that the criticisms of the programme are not made in a party political spirit, at least not by me. I would like to see the programme work. If it is to work, however, serious problems need to be overcome.

Mark Todd: If the hon. Gentleman is interpreting the motion, and if that is what it means, I would accept that that is a helpful step. That has not been explained, however, in the vague and sometimes naive remarks made on the subject by those on either Opposition Front Bench.
	There certainly needs to be further robust engagement on the care record, its design and security. I say that partly because I have a concern myself, but also because we have an opportunity to reassure the profession and re-engage them in the project. The argument for sharing the care record was extraordinarily well made by the appalling incident of the woman who repeatedly contacted an out-of-hours service but there was no inherited memory of her previous contacts with it and what had been said. As a result, she received no proper treatment for her condition. Obviously, having a decent care record even within one organisation would have been a huge benefit in that example, and the case for it to be shared on a wider scale is clear.
	We need to keep the project under continuous review, and an external input into that process should be welcomed but qualified. Incidentally, I have corresponded with a group of academics on the subject and found it difficult to define their goals. As I looked through their compendium of information, it was essentially a collection of press cuttings. I was looking for a much more technical and robust approach to what they were saying than simply a reiteration of various press remarks.

Stewart Jackson: I pay tribute to the knowledge and experience of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), who is at the very least smooth, and almost plausible, in his defence of the Government's position.
	At times like these it is clear that we have a poverty of ambition as a Parliament in holding the Executive to account. Frankly, that would not be the case were we in the House of Representatives in the United States. The Government have criticised the Opposition for bringing to the attention of the House the fact that an IT programme initially mooted to cost £2.6 billion is now likely to cost £35 billion or perhaps £50 billion. As you will have seen yesterday, Mr. Deputy Speaker,  The Daily Telegraph reported the bizarre and appalling situation, especially given the warm words of our new Prime Minister un-elect that he is open and listening, of civil servants, under the auspices of the Office of Government Commerce, being encouraged to shred documents, in particular reports that are critical of the mismanagement of the NHS IT programme. How we can be lectured by the Government that it is inappropriate that we should draw that to the attention of the House and the electorate is perverse.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) said, we are dealing with a huge programme involving 30,000 general practitioners and 300 hospitals, and which has risen exponentially. The last official figure was in June 2006, when the National Audit Office put the cost at £12.4 billion, but in May last year, Lord Warner no less said that it may be £20 billion or more.
	The Public Accounts Committee has on several occasions drawn attention to the shortcomings of the IT projects undertaken by the Government. It said in July 2005 that Government IT projects are characterised by
	"delay, overspends, poor performance and...abandonment."—[ Official Report, 26 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 1594.]
	I notice that the Minister did not quote that in her remarks. The Government have generally sought to disregard the PAC's report, published in April 2007, but its remarks need repeating. Being critical of the Government and the way in which the programme has been handled is not to say that we inherently disagree with the programme. Of course we believe that it is right to proceed in that way, but individual Members of Parliament with an interest—I have the honour and privilege to serve on the Select Committee on Health under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron)—have a right, duty and responsibility to draw failings to the attention of the House, and there have been many failings.
	The report says specifically that the pilot schemes are two years late, especially in relation to the care record service, and that no fall-back date is in place, although Ministers disagree with that. Cost estimates are opaque and have not been fully qualified. There has hitherto been no proper cost-benefit analysis on what will have been delivered to the NHS when the contract ends in 2014. We have heard that Accenture has pulled out of the project at a loss of anything between £240 million to £385 million, along with other IT providers, IDX and ComMedica. Other companies with the skills and experience have not come on board for the programme. We learned earlier that iSOFT faces an uncertain financial future, and we will see whether it manages to stay afloat after its refinancing later this year.
	The key point is that despite protestations from the Government, health care professionals up and down the country have not voted to support the programme with their opinions and have voted with their feet. I said that it is all very well for Ministers to say that choose and book is working, but if they do not collate the figures properly, there is no way they can fully understand the efficacy of that particular record system.
	As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), the number of GPs that support the programme has plummeted from about 55 per cent. a year or so ago to the most recent figure of only 26 per cent. We have a North Korean-style thumbs down from readers of the  Health Service Journal. In a poll of its readers, 97 per cent. said that they did not believe that the choose-and-book target could be met by March 2008. Incidentally, that is the third target; the other two were missed. We now have approximately 38 per cent. take-up of choose and book, although we do not have the raw data to confirm that.
	The Government often quote the NHS Confederation and pray in aid its opinions to support their viewpoint. It has said:
	"The IT changes being proposed are individually technically feasible but they have not been integrated, so as to provide comprehensive solutions anywhere else in the world."
	It is reasonable for people who make their living as professionals and experts in information technology in the academic world to express a value judgment on the success or otherwise of the programme. It is right to draw attention to the fact that core software has not yet been delivered, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk said. There are issues about technical architecture, project planning and detailed design, and about the estimate of the amount of data and the traffic in the programme when it is fully operational. That is a fair point to make.
	There is a degree of complacency. I draw the House's attention to the Minister's comments last year, when she said:
	"The National programme is already the focus of regular and routine audit, scrutiny and review."—[ Official Report, 24 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 1877W.]
	That patently is not the case. The Chairman of the PAC said:
	"This is the biggest IT project in the world and it is turning into the biggest disaster."
	That is hardly a ringing endorsement of progress. As at February 2007, only 18 hospitals had the patient administration system. Incidentally, the Department of Health promised a year before that 35 acute trusts would have it in place.
	I have some key questions for Ministers. Before I ask them, however, I want to deal with the questions asked by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) about privacy.
	I was present when the Health Committee heard evidence from the Patients Association and others recently, and I must respectfully tell the hon. Gentleman that I think he over-egged the pudding slightly in describing the dangers involved in privacy issues. It is incumbent on him, and on others, to prove that the changeover would have a significant negative impact on most or all patients. However, he made an important point about accountability. At present patients benefit from a degree of accountability through their local primary care practices and local trust, but that accountability will be removed if all data are transferred to a national system. We are talking not about articulate, intelligent, well-read middle-class people but about the most vulnerable, those who are least able to say "I do not want my medical records to be online".
	These are my questions to Ministers. When will they engage properly with health care professionals to win their support for the implementation of a system that has demonstrably failed so far? Will they ring-fence primary care trust funds for expenditure on opt-out information? Will they concede that there has been a systemic failure as a result of the dichotomy between national contracts for procurement and the local delivery of those contracts?
	We need action now. I strongly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury that we need a full, zero-based review as well as an audit. We need an annual statement of where we are now and where we will be in 2014. As one or two Members have said, we need to disaggregate local delivery to local trusts where appropriate, with a wider range of suppliers in the IT market. We need to review current performance, and we need to communicate the importance of the programme to all health care professionals more effectively. I agree with the hon. Member for South Derbyshire in that respect.
	The consequence of failure is massive. The expenditure of £50 billion of public money should give us all pause for thought. As my hon. Friend for Eddisbury said, this is not just a "techie" issue; it is about the importance of reforming the NHS through choose and book, about electronic prescriptions, and about the care records service. If mistakes are made, people may die.
	As the right hon. Member for Rother Valley observed, patients should be at the very heart of our considerations. The Government must get a grip on the situation. They owe it to patients, they owe it to my constituents, and they owe it to the whole country. It is right and proper for us to call the Government to account today, and for the Government to explain why this has happened and how we can adopt a bipartisan approach to ensure that we deliver the results that patients expect.

Andrew Miller: The Opposition argued that nothing had been published about the purpose of the project and the safety case for it. That is manifestly untrue. The introduction to a document entitled "Supporting the Patient Safety Agenda" clearly explains the purpose of the scheme. It tells us:
	"Every day more than a million people are treated safely and successfully in the NHS. However, despite the dedication and professionalism of staff, evidence tells us that in complex healthcare systems things will and do go wrong.
	Improving the quality... of patient care therefore lies at the very core of the National Programme for IT... which has its origins in the vision articulated by the Department of Health in 'Delivering 21st Century IT Support for the NHS National Strategic Programme'."
	That, then, is the core reason for the programme's existence. I shall say more in a moment about the work undertaken thus far—enormous strides have been made—but I am glad to see that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), has arrived, as I am about to refer to him. He wrote the foreword to a document called "Computerising the Chinese Army—Information Systems in the NHS", which has been mentioned tangentially by a number of Opposition Members. That is not surprising, because it originated from a Conservative think-tank. Contributors include Tony Collins of  Computer Weekly, the shadow Secretary of State and Dr. Simon Moores of the Conservative Technology Forum.
	Having read the document closely—particularly chapter 10 on the proposed action plan—I can see the genesis of the Opposition motion. It is the result of people thinking very carefully about how to exploit what is, after all, a complex change management programme, described in some detail by my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd). In a sense, it is pushing at an open door.
	I have experience of dealing with change management programmes, having been both poacher and gamekeeper. As was acknowledged by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), people have been put on the spot. They do not like having change imposed on them. The net consequence is a potential for what could be described as insubordination in the ranks. In one company with which I dealt, a senior director fed shop stewards information to undermine what he saw as the damaging impact on his bailiwick of the change management programme.
	If I have any criticism of Ministers, it relates not to the superb work being done by Richard Granger and his team, but to the management of people in the process. In preparing for the debate, I noted how successful the roll-out has been—contrary to what one would believe from some assertions, and contrary to what I must tell my colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee was a very out-of-date PAC report. As I said earlier, there have now been more than 250 PACS records: as of this week, 250,981,000 digital images have been stored. That is a fantastic success. The roll-out has made enormous progress, complex though it may be.

Andrew Miller: No. The simple fact is that those links are fascinating. The Foundation for Information Policy Research, which was referred to earlier, recently received an e-mail from Ross Anderson saying:
	"I've been asked, much to my surprise, to be one of the Health Select Committee's special advisors for their enquiry into the Electronic Patient Record. I pointed out to them that I have 'form'".
	Well, he has. He continues:
	"I'm a member of the Gang of 23",
	along with Professor Sampson who Conservative Members seem never to have heard of. Professor Anderson continued:
	"I support TheBigOptOut."
	In response to a subsequent exchange, he says:
	"I hope that Archrights will write to the committee"—
	the Health Committee—
	"expressing its view on the ethics, legality and operational desirability of having all English children's medical records sitting on half a dozen big server farms, linked in to all sorts of interesting database apps for everything from cancer research (sob sob) to the prediction of antisocial behaviour (identify Tory voters at birth and ASBO them)",
	and a smiley is tagged on at the end. It is no wonder the Tories do not like this: these are the kind of people they are taking advice from and who have fundamentalist views about the opt-out.  [Interruption.] I do not criticise my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) for, as Chairman of the Select Committee, taking a balanced view and having special advisers from both sides, but it is important that we understand that there is a link between the Big Opt Out organisation, the No2ID people, the NHS IT 23 team and the other people to whom I have referred.
	Conservative Members seem to think that that issue is not relevant. On 24 April, those same hon. Members who think it is a big joke and who appear never to have heard of the people I mentioned, would have read Professor Sampson's letter in  The Daily Telegraph, in which he fundamentally criticises the NHS IT programme. Those hon. Members say that they have never heard of him—perhaps they do not read  The Daily Telegraph. Professor Sampson is at the university of Sussex. He has been fundamentally critical of the work of the project, and here we have a complex interaction between people who may not be members of the Conservative party—I am not sure where they fit in—but who are heavily engaged in some outside bodies that are seeking to influence Conservative party thinking.
	Against that background, we look at the reality of what is happening in the NHS IT programme. That is where it becomes mission-critical. We should dismiss the motion out of hand as it is ridiculous. There are, of course, ongoing reviews within the management of the process. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) said, reviews took place in both the industry and the Department, and there is an argument for such reviews being more transparent. However, the facts cannot be refuted: there are now some 354,559 users of the NHS IT system within the NHS and among prescribing pharmacists and others.
	I agree that there are issues to do with security of data. The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) expressed concerns about that, and it is inevitable that there will be security issues. However, it is not unreasonable to state that the vast majority of those who manage our NHS on a day-to-day basis—the doctors, clinicians, pharmacists and administrators—are fantastic and fundamentally honest people who work their socks off for the benefit of the NHS. Having said that, there will of course be the odd rogue among them who will sell data, as there is among police forces and in any other organisation that holds data, and we should rigorously apply data protection rules. I would make further recommendations if I had more time.
	The system is growing. This week alone, almost 7 million picture-archiving and communication records were added to it. This year, a further 307,000 new studies were added, taking the overall figure to more than 11 million. As the system is growing effectively and consistently at a great pace, it does not require an immediate review. The Tory party wishes to force that on it because it wants to make cheap, opportunist attacks on the Government. What the system needs is firm management to take it through some of the difficulties that it has faced, so that we can make sure that we have a world-class and world-beating IT system that leads to the improvement of the health of all citizens.

Alan Duncan: I would love to be in a position to guarantee a Department in that form. We believe that there is a good case for a strong Department, perhaps with enhanced powers, to be a stronger voice for business, commerce and British interests at home and abroad. It is currently perceived as being too weak.
	The CBI's view is that any changes to the structure of Government must strengthen the economic weight attached to Cabinet decisions. It believes that it is vital for a strong champion of business, which understands the realities of today's global economy, to be at the heart of Government. It said that it did not want the competitiveness agenda to be undermined in critical policy areas, including employment and energy.
	Most organisations that have to deal with the DTI believe that it is not doing as much as it could, although I confess that I would not go as far as Mr. Chris Rea, the chairman of Rotherham-based AES Engineering, who said that the DTI is a "complete and utter joke". However, I agree with him that it needs to undergo a complete cultural transformation. That is what, essentially, I am trying to convey to the Secretary of State.
	Let us take a quick canter through the Department's responsibilities and ascertain whether it has performed as well as it should. We have debated post offices several times. In 2001, the Government promised to keep them open except in unavoidable circumstances. Those unavoidable circumstances appear to be arising thick and fast every day. The Government have presided over the largest annual closure of sub-post offices. In total, more than 4,000 have closed since the Government came to office. We know from a recent statement that they intend to close a minimum of a further 2,500 in the next two years. That amounts to a closure rate three times that under the Conservative Government.
	The Government hide behind the access criteria, but even their analysis of those criteria in past years has shown that they can shut two thirds of all post offices and still meet the criteria, because 99 per cent. of people in rural areas live within three miles of a post office.
	The bigger subject, which we have often considered in the House, is energy. We have had no end of reviews. In 10 years of a Labour Government, energy has been high on the agenda for five years. The publication of a White Paper—the third such White Paper since Labour came to office—was delayed twice. It was the product of the Government's third major energy review, under their eighth energy Minister. Yet no definite decisions have been made about the future of our electricity generation. Further consultations are under way, and there are questionable elements in the White Paper published just before the Whitsun recess—about the reform of the renewables obligation, for example—which will delay things further.

Julie Kirkbride: Before my hon. Friend moves on, I would be grateful to hear whether he believes it possible—or, for that matter, likely—for us to meet our carbon reduction targets without nuclear power?

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman asked whether I have any experience in business. The short answer is yes. I spent most of my working life in the private sector. I helped to run a small business in retail—ladies shoes, as it happens—and I was a partner in a law firm, which is private sector as well. That is where the majority of my career was spent. I agree that small business often finds it harder to cope with regulation than larger business, and there are exceptions from certain regulations to take account of that. However, on the question of regulation, what three regulations, by way of example, would his party abolish?

Jeremy Hunt: Does my hon. Friend agree that whether it is the ladies shoe sector or the legal sector, the single thing that helps small businesses most is to operate in a low-tax light-regulation environment? The biggest failure of the DTI under this Government is that it fails at any time to make the case for that competitive environment, which can only be achieved by sharing the proceeds of growth between increases in public spending and reductions in taxation.

Jane Kennedy: As a Minister, I struggled to ensure that in the drive for regulation, which largely came from Europe—I know that the hon. Gentleman has quite an enlightened attitude to Europe, having listened to him in the past—the potential for burden was minimised. Colleagues in the Government work equally hard to do that. Does he accept that to minimise the impact of regulation from Europe on business, we have to be part of an effective lobbying group? Being effective in lobbying in the European Parliament is an important part of that. Surely his party's isolation within the European Parliament will not help in his avowed attitude to such regulation.

Alan Duncan: Based on the first half of the right hon. Lady's comments, I am happy to act as a reference for her return to Government as a Minister in the impending reshuffle. As for the second half, it is not about lobbying in the EU. An EU directive is an instruction to member states to make their domestic law conform to certain stipulations. Most of the gold-plating—indeed, all the actual gold-plating—is home-grown. It is the culture of the United Kingdom and the way in which we write our law to adhere to directives that causes so much of the problem. I applaud her attitude when a Minister to try to keep that to a minimum, but the culture of Departments and the way in which we write our law tends to make those directives go far further than they need ever do. That is what I would like to see changed.

Alan Duncan: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. We all look forward to his report on competitiveness, which I am sure will make an important contribution to our policy making.
	Let me turn to the issue of business support. A year ago, the Government announced their intention to reduce 3,000 business support schemes to a mere 100. Let us stop and think about that for a moment. The very fact that the Government imagine that a quantum leap can be made from 3,000 to 100 is a vivid illustration of the absurdity of the present regime. There are 3,000 schemes, and most people simply do not understand how they work. The Government are spending perhaps £12 billion on these schemes, and can provide no measurable evidence of the effect of that expenditure.
	Only 15 per cent. of small businesses have had any contact with the schemes. Instead of a clear structure for support, there are roughly 3,000 schemes administered by around 2,000 public bodies. That is absurd. The system needs vigorous and urgent rationalisation, a proper assessment of its effectiveness, and an explanation from the Secretary of State of how he expects it to work in the future. The chief executive of the Small Business Service has described it as
	"an incredibly complex system... an inaccessible business support system for customers that is inefficient and ineffective for Government".
	That takes us to a issue on which deep thought is needed: the issue of regional development agencies, on which the Government spends the second largest amount in the DTI budget. Each of the nine RDAs has a budget of anything between approximately £250 million and £450 million, and for a long time there has been no convincing explanation or analysis from the Government of what good they actually do.
	As we all know, over the years Governments of different colours have wrestled with the best model for enhancing the economic development of our regions, and with the task of releasing pockets of poverty from economic inactivity. Where previously we had the development corporation model, involving some fantastically effective and evident flagship schemes in derelict docklands, we now have a lot of jam spread very thinly throughout the country. It is not clear whether that is to do with regional policy or with economic development. We do not know, for instance, whether the RDAs' remit includes a demand that they should invigorate an enterprise culture in areas dominated by the public sector, such as the north-east.

Julie Kirkbride: Talking of issues that might well be subject to party-political agreement, when the Trade and Industry Committee has travelled abroad one of the main criticisms of RDAs that we have heard relates to the competition between them. Most people in India, China and Brazil, for example, think that England—or the United Kingdom, for that matter—is a small country stuck in the middle of the Atlantic. They do not know the difference between the west midlands and Tyneside, and they find that competition between the RDAs that turn up for the trade fairs trying to sell the wares of one particular region gets in the way of money coming to the UK.

Alan Duncan: My hon. Friend is the Chairman of the Select Committee and I am sure that Ministers will read his report fully. From what I have heard about it today, it sounds as if it matches the conclusions that I and my Front-Bench team have reached over the past few months about UKTI and RDAs.
	I wish to make a plea to the Secretary of State and his Ministers—or, perhaps, to his and their successors. Personal visits abroad matter, but over the past 10 years DTI Ministers have paid very few visits to much of the middle east. Some of our closest allies have received no trade visits at all. I understand that the Secretary of State will soon visit the United Arab Emirates, which is to be welcomed. However, there is at present a lot of money in the middle east and despite the Iraq war there is deep affection for Britain. People in the middle east understand that Britain is a good place to put their hundreds of millions—or even billions. We have neglected countries such as Oman and Kuwait. The last trade Minister to go to Yemen was Anthony Nelson in 1996, and he— [Interruption.] Yes, he joined the Labour party—but at least he was right to go to Yemen.
	It is a serious point. It causes deep insult to people who instinctively have affection for us that our governmental apparatus appears to neglect them and that we only send Defence Ministers to their countries. That must be remedied. I can honestly say that I believe that I personally, and at my own expense, have been to more such countries than have the Secretary of State and his entire team over the past 10 years. I urge the Secretary of State to appreciate that this is a severe deficiency in the practices of his Department.
	The Rover inquiry has cost a lot of money.  [Interruption.] Yes, millions of pounds. However, we must remember that the problems that we faced in respect of Rover were made far worse by the ill-judged interference and intervention of one of the current Secretary of State's predecessors in that post, the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers). Two offers were on the table for Rover, and he took the one that he thought would save him votes. That accelerated the demise of the company. It cost people their pensions and pay-outs, and eventually their jobs. That is a stain on the reputation of the right hon. Gentleman.
	The Government have also delayed the publication of legislation on construction for more than a year. The amount of manufacturing jobs is shrinking. Business investment is at a record low. Research and development spending has fallen by 9 per cent. as a proportion of GDP since 1997. Many of the figures that matter most in making up our competitive position are pointing in the wrong direction.
	Within three weeks, we will know the fate of the DTI. My party is against its abolition, as that would be reckless and there must be a voice for business at the Cabinet table. On balance, we would favour the Department being enhanced. However, it is essential above all that, regardless of the structure of the Department, its culture is changed so that there is a stronger voice for enterprise and business in the UK. The DTI—or whatever the Department is called—must be what it has not been over the past few years: a voice for business around the Cabinet table, and a voice for Britain in the world.

Alistair Darling: I was going to come to that. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton said at the beginning of last year:
	"From about the age of 12, I have had an instinctive hostility to nuclear power. I treat it with profound suspicion."—[ Official Report, 17 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 779.]
	I was surprised, therefore, that on the day that I published my White Paper he urged me to go and build nuclear power stations as quickly as I possibly could. I was even more surprised that this morning, in an interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC, when he was asked what is Tory policy on nuclear, he said that "It's pretty well the same as the Government's."  Interruption . ] Well, we had better have a word with the BBC, because according to the transcript that I have here that is precisely what he said. Again, this is so reminiscent of the grammar school debate, where we are not sure whether the Tories are for something or against it, and then their leader comes along with a characteristic grammar school compromise and says:
	"Let's give green energy the chance and then have nuclear there as a last resort."
	In other words, perhaps in 2020 or 2030, if it has not worked because the Tories have blocked all the wind farms, we will start considering nuclear. That policy makes absolutely no sense at all.
	In relation to planning, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton has said that he supports a streamlined planning system. I welcome that. However, on the day before that, the shadow planning Minister had condemned the proposals. We all know in this House that if we want infrastructure of the sort that we need, whether for energy, transport, housing or whatever, we will have to reform the planning system. The test will come when proposals finally come before the House and we see whether they are supported.
	I welcome what the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton said about science. He did not say much, but he said that we were doing the right thing. We have indeed doubled the amount that we are spending on science, and it will rise to just under £4 billion by 2010. We have spent £3 billion on rebuilding our science infrastructure in universities so that we have the first-class facilities that we need. Importantly, we are putting money into getting that research from the laboratory into the marketplace, which is absolutely essential. We are beginning to see the results of an improved science base in this country, with the decoding of the human genome, the fact that a fifth of the world's top 100 selling medicines were developed in the UK, and the fact that we have only 1 per cent. of the world's population but produce 9 per cent. of all science papers and 12 per cent. of all citations. Our expenditure on research and development has been increasing. Encouragingly, in the past three years 25 university spin-out companies have floated on the stock market to the value of £1.5 billion. That is all very welcome.
	I hope, in the interests of the long term, that we will have the Conservatives' support. I was rather surprised and disappointed to see that the Tory technology and science taskforce said that a Tory Government will not spend any more on science. We are spending more because we think that it needs to be spent.

Susan Kramer: I feel that in this debate we are picking over the carcass of the almost dead. The Government amendment to the Conservative motion is astonishing in its lack of mention of the DTI. The word "Government" but not "DTI" frequently appears in it. The rather sniffy comments from the Secretary of State about the Liberal Democrats may reflect his chagrin that the policy that we have long advocated of eliminating the DTI is suddenly about to turn into Government policy. I understand why he might be feeling a little sniffy. We saw that coming a long way away. Indeed, we recommended it as far back as 1995. It is true that it has taken a long time for a good policy to be implemented, but I suspect that in the next few weeks it will be in place. That is perhaps long-term thinking at its best.
	I associate myself with the right hon. Gentleman's comments about many of those who work for the DTI. The words had the air of a eulogy. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) say, "Sounds to me like 'Thank you and good night'," but the words are fairly earned. Many civil servants at the DTI have carried out their roles very well, and I have found that many Ministers have performed their roles and represented their areas of responsibility well. The problem is an institutional one, not a problem with the individuals involved in the Department.
	The mover of the Conservative motion, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan)—I see that he has had enough of the debate and has chosen to leave—crafted something quite elegant in its criticisms of the DTI. However, when it comes to the punchline, the call for action, it says just about nothing, other than, "We'll burnish it up a bit." That seems to be Conservative policy.

Susan Kramer: I am going to carry on, because otherwise we will have had only three speakers in the entire debate, which would be insane.
	Let us consider some recent events, if we are going to discuss the effectiveness of the DTI. The problems of the Post Office exercise more people in this country than any other issue. The DTI has looked on the Post Office as an organisation in terminal decline. Some 2,500 more branches are about to close, and there is the move to WH Smith—nearly always in unsatisfactory circumstances—of 70 more Crown post offices. What shows the negative view that the DTI are taking of the Post Office even more than its looking upon it as a declining network and set of services rather than examining its potential, is the fact that it is also eliminating Postwatch, just at the key time when its services are needed to support consumers as they go through the process of trying to work out what the individual closures will mean.
	Indeed, part of the problem with the Department is the constant fault in implementation. The timing of abolishing Postwatch shows lack of sensitivity to the way in which services should be delivered on the ground if they are to be effective. People need support to go through a proper consultation process about a critical decision, which will determine whether some communities thrive or decline further. It will have a big impact on many elderly people and on deprived communities. That is a good example of the Department's general failure.
	Hon. Members of all parties generally support the new National Consumer Council's underlying mandate. However, proposed legislation is inadequate to implement it. In the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill, one has to hunt for any direction that makes the NCC a consumer champion. The intent that Ministers describe is not in the Bill, and therefore cannot be guaranteed.
	The Government's plan for the new NCC requires merging Postwatch and Energywatch. No headquarters have yet been identified. Redundancy notices should be issued shortly if the transition is to be accomplished by next April. Morale is declining in all the various parts of the organisation. Again, implementation has been fouled up. That appears to be inherent in the way in which the Department currently functions.
	We all supported estate agent reform, but again opportunities have been missed. There is no ability to introduce, for example, lettings and direct sales as part of the reforms. Positive licensing is absent. The public want that to ensure that when they make the biggest investment of their lives, they are dealing with a trained and qualified estate agent, not someone who put the sign out yesterday morning.
	As the guardian of public interest, the NCC should be a vital body, yet the implementation process is again fundamentally flawed. That could disillusion the public about protection in the long term.
	On energy, the Department could not even manage a consultation on the costs of nuclear power without running into trouble with Mr. Justice Sullivan and a judicial review. Something of a farce is now happening, with a repeat of a consultation. It is not clear that the required information on costing—for example, the Ernst and Young report, which is available only in heavily redacted form—will be in the public arena to enable us to hold an effective consultation. Indeed, the Government have refused to publish the submissions to that consultation until the end of the process, so no one can rebut them or respond to them at all. Flawed process is a constant feature of the Department's actions. That leads to general scepticism that the Government's direction, especially on nuclear power, is essentially driven by Downing street rather than by the Department, or by a reasoned review of all the issues.

Mark Tami: Perhaps the hon. Lady could explain Liberal Democrat energy policy. Locally, Liberal Democrats appear to oppose every scheme, whether it is for a wind form or onshore or offshore energy. Is there a national Liberal Democrat policy, or simply an opportunist policy of local opposition?

Susan Kramer: The hon. Gentleman picks up scraps here and there. Liberal Democrats certainly support renewable energy. There will be instances of opposition by local parties, but the Liberal Democrats have been overwhelmingly supportive. We will continue to be so, and to play a leading part in promoting the sort of political framework necessary for renewables.
	Renewables are the core of the energy policy that we want to pursue. Our fundamental argument with the Government's case on nuclear power is that it will effectively crowd out carbon storage and capture—the alternative transitional technology until we achieve an all-renewables-based energy system—as well as renewables. The BP Peterhead experience will be looked back on in a year or two as the first example of a carbon capture and storage programme that got crowded out by the nuclear announcement and by the direction being captured within the energy White Paper. Time will tell, but I suspect that we will look back on that as the very first example and illustration of what is really going on in this sector. There are finite resources for investment in future energy technologies, and they are now being diverted to what I regard as the most inappropriate technology.
	The Minister also raised the issue of security of supply, but nuclear energy, even under the most optimistic programme that he could put together, would be providing something like 4 per cent. of the UK's total energy usage. It does not eliminate the need for oil and gas. We hear about 20 per cent. of electricity being provided from renewables, but the Government constantly get electricity and energy muddled, and they have never been able to tell us how they will reach the EU target of providing 20 per cent. of energy—not electricity—from renewables by 2020. That is another feature of the DTI's general problem in dealing with a wide range of issues.
	The Government constantly talk about not subsidising nuclear energy, but we have heard clearly again today a commitment from both the Government and Conservative Front Benchers to what amounts to the most significant subsidy of all—the transfer of risk in connection with waste to the public and away from the commercial sector. That has always been one of the key core arguments against nuclear power, because that it is the largest subsidy of all.

Ben Wallace: The hon. Gentleman is not seriously saying that given that 1 million manufacturing jobs have been lost under his Government's strategy, that that strategy is a success?

Nigel Griffiths: The 1 million manufacturing jobs that the hon. Member should be telling the House about are the 600,000-plus manufacturing jobs lost in one year alone in the first Tory recession and the 400,000 lost in one year alone in the second recession. Those are the records that we had to rescue this country's manufacturing from, and we did a creditable job in doing it.
	Our success is shown by the fact that, whereas under the last Government manufacturing jobs flooded other countries, we have repatriated key projects such as the construction of the new Mini engine. A substantial investment by the DTI has multiplied itself 10, 20 and 30 times in another massive investment at Hams Hall so that the engine can be made there. The Department has also underpinned £1 billion of investment in aerospace. Our Rolls-Royce Trent engine now powers almost a third of the world's commercial aircraft, again as a result of the Government's manufacturing strategy.
	Manufacturing productivity increases have returned this country to the world-beating league in certain key areas. That is one reason why our pharmaceutical industry now exports more by value than almost any of its foreign competitors, our aero-engines—as I have said—power a third of the world's commercial aircraft, a quarter of Ford cars in the world have engines with "Made in Britain" stamped on them, and projects like the one in Brazil are being returned to this country.
	This Government established the Automotive Academy to increase skills and productivity. They established the Chemistry Leadership Council and the national aerospace technology strategy, and have worked closely with industry to reflect its needs in those crucial areas. And they have done more. Ten years ago there were only 75,000 apprentices in the country, which was a disgrace. Now there are more than 250,000, 70,000 in manufacturing alone. However, I urge my colleagues—who I know will take my words to heart—to do still more to promote even higher-quality manufacturing apprenticeships and jobs.
	The DTI is an unsung hero in another key area, that of decent rights for working people. We have delivered to part-time workers rights that they never had under any previous Government. More than 3 million have been given the right to four weeks' paid holiday, more than 6 million have benefited from pay and conditions equal to those of full-time workers, and more than 1 million—1.5 million, I believe—have benefited from the national minimum wage. I will not make political points about who supported those measures and who did not.
	As for the DTI's contribution to the environment, I applaud the work of the Minister for Energy, my hon. Friend the Minister for Science and Innovation—the former energy Minister—and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in securing a £1 billion investment in renewables, including £800 million for microgeneration, more than £110 million for offshore wind generation, £60 million for energy crops and biomass, and investment in key technologies such as photovoltaics, which now powers some of the computer laboratories and libraries at Napier university in my constituency.
	I challenge the Liberal Democrats to name two onshore wind turbine projects for which they have supported planning permission. It seems to me that they never support such projects on their doorstep, although they have a general and, I am sorry to say, rather hypocritical policy of supporting them nationally. I note that they remain seated, and do not attempt to name even one such project. In fact, I do not believe that they support any of them.
	I am glad that on science, at least, we have consensus in the House. In 10 years we have taken science investment from £1.3 billion to £3.5 billion. That has led to spectacular successes, one of which was mentioned earlier. Let me add to the many tributes paid to Lord Sainsbury. He was an outstanding science Minister, I believe the best science Minister. He was a great ambassador on behalf of science to Government and a great securer of Government resources for science.
	On UK Trade and Investment, I thought that the criticisms of the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) were a little unbalanced. Had he read today's report from the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, he would have seen in paragraph 38 praise for the success of UKTI, for its strength in attracting R and D facilities from overseas into this country and for the targeted investment in China and India, which is proving immensely profitable for UK companies. UKTI, its predecessor, the DTI and other Departments have succeeded in making this country the magnet for foreign investment because of our favourable tax regime and our regulatory regime, which is far more favourable than that in many other countries.
	The report touches on regulations, as the hon. Member did. It says in paragraph 3 that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ranks this country
	"as having...the most liberal product market regulation amongst the G7 countries."
	That reflects what is being said by other surveys that the hon. Member should be reading.
	The RDAs have been giving business advice and have been highly praised for the business advice that has been delivered through the small business network, which has advised 600,000 small businesses.
	I was provoked by this: I was rather surprised that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer) raised the issue of post offices. I note that the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton, who speaks for the Opposition, wisely steered clear of that because the Conservatives closed 3,500 of them.
	In fairness to the Liberal Democrats, no one knows more about the betrayal of post offices than them. Their councillors in towns and cities such as Aberdeen refuse to let local citizens use the post office to pay the council tax, rents, business trade waste bills, home help and other charges. By contrast Labour-run councils such as Edinburgh pay a fee to the Post Office to allow that to happen. Of course, the net result of that is that 20 per cent. more post offices closed in Aberdeen. Again, the Liberal Democrats have failed to put at least some money where their mouth is. Instead they wanted to save money and they did not care that it cost us the post offices.
	Nationally, Liberal Democrat policies on post offices are just as bad. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) wrote a policy paper advocating the privatisation of post offices along Dutch lines, which has meant mass closures. By contrast, this Government have invested some £3 billion in post offices to secure the best possible network that can be secured in this day and age. That reflects what Labour councils such as Edinburgh have done. The Government have given financial support because it was worth while putting money into post offices.

Nigel Griffiths: I ask the hon. Member, are the wind farms there now?
	The position is clear. I make sure that in my constituency people do not have to travel beyond the recognised distance to visit a post office. I also support my local postmasters and postmistresses who decide that they want to move out of that business and into another one. That might be one of the reasons why I got their support in the election—because they realise that in Edinburgh we have had a realistic strategy that has led to there being managed closures, even though we regret some of them, of course. However, I am not in favour of the Liberal Democrats telling this House one thing—that they will save every post office at all costs—and then failing to support post offices in Aberdeen by not paying for the services there.

Malcolm Wicks: I will do my best to be both focused and purposeful in answering the debate. We have had an extensive debate and it has been interesting in all sorts of ways. The shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry opened the debate with a 45-minute speech, but that was not long enough, because he clearly did not have time to spell out much detail—to put it mildly—of Conservative party policy as it affects the DTI. When he did the saloon bar rant, as I might call it, on the need for a bonfire of regulations, he was challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) to name just three regulations that should be abolished. After a while the hon. Gentleman said that he would take down all the No Smoking signs that are going up—surely an indication that despite what we usually think, there can be smoke without political fire.
	We then had an interesting contribution from the spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrat party, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer). I was particularly interested in her plan to save £8 billion from the DTI budget—to be fair, I must add that that was to be saved over the lifetime of a Parliament. She, too, was unable to speak for quite long enough to say how that arithmetical conjuring trick would be managed. The science budget is about half of the DTI budget. It has gone up substantially and is some £3.4 billion a year. Clearly, to manage £8 billion-worth of cuts in the departmental budget over the lifetime of a Parliament would involve enormous slashing of the science budget. We will have to spend some time making sure that any academics who, sadly, voted Liberal Democrat last time know exactly what the plan is to slash the academic, science and research base of our country.
	DTI issues affect everyone's lives, from their gas bills to better training at work to parental leave, and from the level of the minimum wage to advice to a budding entrepreneur. The Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff), is always a mild and reasonable man—but for two minutes I almost thought he was a Tory politician. He argued that all the great benefits to the country from a new Labour Government were based on a Tory economic heritage—but then he remembered where part of his salary comes from and became the reasonable even-handed Chairman of the Select Committee. Like the Opposition spokesmen and others, he paid tribute to the very good officials we have in different parts of the DTI. I thank him, and echo those words about the excellence of our officials, whatever our political differences might be about the DTI.
	Let me take a step back and look at our work in context. Britain faces two major challenges—globalisation and climate change—alongside many other challenges. They are challenges, of course, but opportunities as well, for those willing to reach out to embrace them. We need to make globalisation work for us, and for the people of our country, and ensure that we shape globalisation rather than being shaped by it. That is the nature of the challenge. Over the coming decades there will be global changes at least as profound as those brought about by the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th century. What took 200 years to evolve in that earlier epoch will take perhaps 20 or 30 years in the new global industrial revolution. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths) spoke about one important aspect of that—the challenge for modern manufacturing.
	The DTI is at the centre of ensuring that globalisation is good for UK employees through the creation of new high-value jobs, and that it is good for the consumer through fair competition and prices. In 2005-06, UK Trade and Investment—we have heard quite a lot about UKTI—helped nearly 6,000 UK companies move into overseas markets and landed more than 1,220 inward investment projects, with nearly 90,000 jobs being created or safeguarded. I saw at first hand the excellent work of UKTI at the recent Biotech 2007 conference in Boston.
	The Government are responding to the changing business climate, which involves dealing with the challenges of globalisation and energy security. The DTI is tackling those challenges head on, taking tough decisions and making a real difference. We have heard about the energy White Paper, which will provide a framework for delivering a secure, low-carbon energy mix for the United Kingdom, tackling the twin challenges of climate change and—this is, as the Secretary of State noted, increasingly important—providing energy security. The White Paper announced specific measures to make inroads into reducing our carbon emissions and ensuring secure supplies for decades to come.
	For the UK, but also for Europe more generally, globalisation demands what we increasingly refer to as a knowledge economy, which means a strong emphasis on science and innovation. The DTI continues to invest in our science base at unprecedented levels. The figure is currently £3.4 billion, which is more than half the DTI's budget and double the sum of 10 years ago. That figure will rise to almost £3.9 billion in 2010-11. We have a worldwide reputation for being excellent at science. In the past few years, we have spent more than £3 billion building world-class laboratories, and one can see that huge investment in any local or regional university.
	Patents are up 98 per cent. and income from intellectual property is up by 112 per cent. Since 1997, the value of collaborative research between universities and businesses has increased by more than 50 per cent.

Richard Younger-Ross: I have a petition from residents of the villages of Kingskerswell, Aller and Edginswell, who are objecting to the proposal for a bypass around their village. I do not agree with their conclusions, as I am in favour of the bypass. However, it is important that the Government take note of the petition that they wish to be laid before the House. I therefore support the petition, in so far as it should be laid and discussed.
	The petition states:
	The Humble Petition of the residents of Kingskerswell, Aller and Edginswell, Devon object to the scheme because it would be highly damaging to the precious countryside and environment in the county of Devon. It should not be built because the costs involved are excessive and there are alternatives to relieving congestion on the A380.
	Any your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
	 To lie upon the Table.